1st Quarter 2013 Results Conference Call on May 8th at 1:30 pm pst

[Therougetitan]

Subs will go down. WoW has changed too much and it's not the same game at all that was launched years and years ago.

Catering to everyone like Blizzard has done is not a good idea at all and I expect yet again we will see a sub drop, rightfully so. World of queue craft which the game has become has runied the social experience.

It's time to release Titan information and let WoW go.

WoW is extremely profitable, it has bee long before subs were this high and it will be for years to come even if Titan comes out. It'd be a pretty dumb decision just to cut off such an extreme money maker just to release a new MMO when they can make money off two successful MMOs.

[Arbs]

Oh man here we go, Destil, MMOtotal & Pebrocks I will supply the popcorn & lawn chairs. You guys bring the blankets, drinks & sunglasses.
People that lurk in the shadows are coming out & running a muck already.

---------- Post added 2013-04-25 at 02:54 AM ----------

Haha, right? I actually expect sub numbers to stay level or go up since 5.2 launched in March. Anyone who re-subbed or stayed subbed through March 31st will be counted.

Ya thats what I was thinking, if anyone resubbed at the beginning of march there currently still subbed on the Quarterly release.

---------- Post added 2013-04-25 at 03:01 AM ----------

The Doomsayers will flock to it. Then if subs are down they will be calling it the death of wow. If the subs are up they all go conspiracy keanu and say blizz is cheating the number some how. Goes the same every quarter.

Bascially thatd what it is always, regardless of outcome.

---------- Post added 2013-04-25 at 03:02 AM ----------

I expect it to be the same or even a little higher.
I know it's a little much but EU WoW has gone from 2 FULL/locked servers to 10 since 5.2 and that has been for 3/4 weeks now.
Is US Doing that good too?
Also all Queue times are way faster since 5.2 like LFR from 30 mins to 10/15mins.
Scenarios instant Que
And BG's a few secs.

I have noticed servers dying & other servers growing in the US.

---------- Post added 2013-04-25 at 03:13 AM ----------

I don't know. I've never seen so many people quit in such a short period as I have on my server. Just tons and tons of long time players/guilds just dropping left and right. I can only imagine how it is on lower pop servers. There seems to be sooooo many more "my realm is dead!" posts than one would expect this early into a solid xpac. I think people are just sick of the game and the direction WoW is going with the queuecraft style of gameplay.

I'll be really surprised if they don't post a 1mil+ sub loss. Even if they do post a slight loss, I'd hazard to guess it's buffered by the korean market or any overseas promotions they may be doing. I suspect the NA market has seen some massive sub losses. Unfortunately, I really don't think it will be long before the NA sub numbers are below 1 million.

They coudl have moved to another server with friends & for the better of there guild or they have played for 8 years and tired of the game.

If numbers go down: "WoW is dying abandon ship!!!11one!"

If numbers stay the same or go up: "Zomg, Blizzard is padding the numbers!"

Zaeed my good friend don't forget to join my Quarterly Report Hangout, we got everything from popcorn to lawnchairs & sunglasses, while we watch the chaos begin.

why keep your sub up when you're not playing?

Why do we need to play 24/7 ??

[BenBos]

While we wear that tinfoil hat it is also worth mentionting that 5.2 was probably delayed (becouse it was delayed) so that all the people who came back to test it but then left again becouse it wasnt good enough for them, will still be counted in the Q1 summary as subscribers. Blizzard will do anything to make those numbers look as good as possible.

---------- Post added 2013-04-24 at 05:57 AM ----------


Oh its BenBos again. You seem to show up with same fanatical rhetoric every time someone mentions the subs numbers. Perhaps some of the "haters" have an obsession on that subject around here. But so do you.


That 9-12mln subs numbers still baffles me since years. I have no idea how all this adds up when all available concurency data shows WoW to be 2-3 times more popular from next in the pack title. While this is still a solid lead, it is nowhere near the "x10 times more" mantra that Blizzard seems to be advertising. It almost seems like half of all those subscribers are not playing the game at all.


I think I remember you to once present a dumb idea that we should all play and support with our money only WoW and Blizzard becouse it is already in the 1st place and everything below 1st place does not matter so supporting any other developer is a waste of money. That was one of the dumbest things I remember reading on this forum. If my memory plays tricks on me and it was not you, my apologies. Otherwise... well...

And how does revenue translate into quality of the product? You suggest that people cant have fun with things that cost less to produce? Does this also mean that Avatar is the best movie in the history of cinema?

You just answered your own remark of being "baffled" how these huge numbers of subs come around.

Blizzard alone (not activision) made more than 1.600 million dollars in 2012... Subsctract the 500 million of D3 and you have your revenue stream of WoW on a yearly basis.

The only other MMO which publishes its money stream is Eve and that game lingers around 50 million dollars yearly.

-

So unless Blizzard makes this billion with illegal Columbian drug dealing ... I guess you were owned by their world wide subscriptions indeed.

-----

As to your last argument of "supporting" a successful company: be glad Blizzard even exists or we would play all those other "wonderful" crappy MMO's ...

As I stated: almost all the rest of the bunch went free to p(l)ay, so the battle of the subs (and the money) is already over for years.

Subs don't even exist anymore with all these duds people had to endure for years long hyping. So ANY number of X million subs owns 0 subs anytime.

[Arbs]

You just answered your own remark of being "baffled" how these huge numbers of subs come around.

Blizzard alone (not activision) made more than 1.600 million dollars in 2012... Subsctract the 500 million of D3 and you have your revenue stream of WoW on a yearly basis.

The only other MMO which publishes its money stream is Eve and that game lingers around 50 million dollars yearly.

-

So unless Blizzard makes this billion with illegal Columbian drug dealing ... I guess you were owned by their world wide subscriptions indeed.

-----

As to your last argument of "supporting" a successful company: be glad Blizzard even exists or we would play all those other "wonderful" crappy MMO's ...

As I stated: almost all the rest of the bunch went free to p(l)ay, so the battle of the subs (and the money) is already over for years.

Subs don't even exist anymore with all these duds people had to endure for years long hyping. So ANY number of X million subs owns 0 subs anytime.

This is why I leave the Quarterly stuff to BenBos, I don't know a damn thing about it or how to calculate it without getting put in the right direction.

[Gimlix]

You just answered your own remark of being "baffled" how these huge numbers of subs come around.

Blizzard alone (not activision) made more than 1.600 million dollars in 2012... Subsctract the 500 million of D3 and you have your revenue stream of WoW on a yearly basis.

The only other MMO which publishes its money stream is Eve and that game lingers around 50 million dollars yearly.

-

So unless Blizzard makes this billion with illegal Columbian drug dealing ... I guess you were owned by their world wide subscriptions indeed.

-----

As to your last argument of "supporting" a successful company: be glad Blizzard even exists or we would play all those other "wonderful" crappy MMO's ...

As I stated: almost all the rest of the bunch went free to p(l)ay, so the battle of the subs (and the money) is already over for years.

Subs don't even exist anymore with all these duds people had to endure for years long hyping. So ANY number of X million subs owns 0 subs anytime.

Nice said mate!

[Deshow]

If titan is set in the same universe and an mmorpg im all for it. But if it isnt i want it to fail badly so blizzard can start properly supporting wow again because it seems to me that they arnt using enough man power and resources for the game right now. Instead their putting it all into titan. Imo wow right now is pretty fun but if we ever want to see it re-enter a golden age titan needs to fail. That is the only solution, all this pointless bickering and complaining is for nothing. Blizzard doesnt care.

I am calling it right now titan is going to be cod level casual and is going to attempt to cash into the casual market via gimmicks, such as mobile apps or motion control. I mean for a game with 10 million players it sure is taking a long while to upgrade the 6 year old character models.

[Pann]

You just answered your own remark of being "baffled" how these huge numbers of subs come around.

Blizzard alone (not activision) made more than 1.600 million dollars in 2012... Subsctract the 500 million of D3 and you have your revenue stream of WoW on a yearly basis.

The only other MMO which publishes its money stream is Eve and that game lingers around 50 million dollars yearly.

-

So unless Blizzard makes this billion with illegal Columbian drug dealing ... I guess you were owned by their world wide subscriptions indeed.

-----

As to your last argument of "supporting" a successful company: be glad Blizzard even exists or we would play all those other "wonderful" crappy MMO's ...

As I stated: almost all the rest of the bunch went free to p(l)ay, so the battle of the subs (and the money) is already over for years.

Subs don't even exist anymore with all these duds people had to endure for years long hyping. So ANY number of X million subs owns 0 subs anytime.

What does this have to do with topic of the thread? Your figures for D3 are complete guess work, at 12 million copies sold I would say that $500 million is an extremely conservative estimate, and you are neglecting the fact that Blizzard's earnings were boosted by MOP sales. It is worth noting that Subscription, licensing and other revenues for 2012 is $262 million down on the previous year. Despite the launch of two major titles in 2012 compared to none 2011 overall Blizzard revenue showed a $366 million like for like increase, taking your figure of $500 million for D3 this shows a decline in WOW revenue of $134 million. Whilst 2012 showed and increase on 2011 if was $47 million down on 2010 that saw the release of Cata and SC2, which sold less than half of the number copies that D3 sold.

Whilst it is not Blizzard's fault the success of WOW has lead to a complete lack of innovation in the MMO genre as other publishers try to grab a slice of the action.

WOW is extremely successful and will continue to be so for some time but it is losing subs and there is no sight of a turn around.

Anyway would you like to offer an on topic reply? If so what do think the sub figures for Q1 will be and why?

This is why I leave the Quarterly stuff to BenBos, I don't know a damn thing about it or how to calculate it without getting put in the right direction.

Perhaps if you did less of the former you would know more about the latter.

[Fagatronics]

Blizzard alone (not activision) made more than 1.600 million dollars in 2012... Subsctract the 500 million of D3 and you have your revenue stream of WoW on a yearly basis.

Your figures for D3 are complete guess work, at 12 million copies sold I would say that $500 million is an extremely conservative estimate, and you are neglecting the fact that Blizzard's earnings were boosted by MOP sales. It is worth noting that Subscription, licensing and other revenues for 2012 is $262 million down on the previous year. Despite the launch of two major titles in 2012 compared to none 2011 overall Blizzard revenue showed a $366 million like for like increase, taking your figure of $500 million for D3 this shows a decline in WOW revenue of $134 million. Whilst 2012 showed and increase on 2011 if was $47 million down on 2010 that saw the release of Cata and SC2, which sold less than half of the number copies that D3 sold.

Let's stop these kinds of speculations and estimates being touted as facts. We're already speculating the potential subs gain/loss/stability and adding Blizzards theoretical financial situation to the mix only causes more confusion and arguments. If you want to talk about potential money gained/lost this quarter by Blizz, that's fine. But breaking down what Blizz made last year without a source and going by just what you think needs to stop.

Actually, you could. All you needed was a guild who actually knew what they were doing and they could basically boost 5 - 7 people per run.

While I agree you could probably get by with running a few under geared people through BT, I definitely don't think you could have done it with Sunwell.

[Pann]

Let's stop these kinds of speculations and estimates being touted as facts. We're already speculating the potential subs gain/loss/stability and adding Blizzards theoretical financial situation to the mix only causes more confusion and arguments. If you want to talk about potential money gained/lost this quarter by Blizz, that's fine. But breaking down what Blizz made last year without a source and going by just what you think needs to stop.

They are facts released from Blizzard that are readily available on the Activision Blizzard website for anyone that wants to look at them. Well all apart from the $500 million income from D3 which is BenBos' estimate.

[kingriku]

I expect -1mil west -3mil east

Yeah we lost 4 mil.... you know what no i bet we lost 9mil, the games dead.

/s

[Chickat]

As I predicted last time - I'm 100% certain numbers definitely didn't go up 1st quarter either. If they did, Blizz would've announced their sub numbers RIGHT AWAY like they did 1 week after Pandaria came out and the quarter ended and they got the small boost up to, i believe, 10.6 mil or whatever it was.

Having said that, it only means that subs have stayed the same or have gone down. I would suspect they went down simply another 300-500k as it did last quarter. There's been nothing major released during this time to give it a Diablo-style mass exodus like the 1 mill lost quarter did last time - so there's no reason to expect any massive leaps off the ship this go around either.

They only announce sub numbers at the start of an expansion if they go up. They dont publicly announce sub numbers like that every quarter even if they do go up.

[McNeil]

What is the current sub number? 9.5 million? I'd expect a 300 - 600k drop, more people are getting bored of MoP and go to other games relative quick. 5.2 might help keeping some subs, but there will always be more people leaving than staying/joining at this point.

Its no point to say that the subs will INCREASE, it never happened outside of when the expansion was released.

[Darsithis]

why keep your sub up when you're not playing?

Why go through the hassle of canceling it if I know I'll eventually come back?

[MoanaLisa]

Subs probably down a bit. I have no idea if it will be a big bit or a small bit and at this point have decided I don't much care about it. The pattern that I suspect is emerging is that subs go up by some amount at the start of an expansion and then gradually decrease over the life of the expansion. It's likely to be a very long, slow and gradual slope and it's mostly due to a lack of new players entering an eight-year-old game that costs $15/month (roughly if you're in the U.S. or Europe) while more people are leaving that eight-year-old game that costs $15/month. I'm not sure that I believe there's much to be done about that.

F2P alternatives have something to do with it as well as the gaming world has clearly moved on from MMO's generally. Blizzard's strategy to keep the numbers up by releasing more content faster is a good one from a business perspective and long overdue. However, I don't think it's a viable strategy for bringing in new players although it's a good thing for maintaining the player base you already have and to a lesser extent bring back older players who have moved on. Many of those will be gone for good but some may drop in for a bit to have a look and stay for the duration. That's something we'll never know but is a possibility.

In any case, it's clear that we'll have this thread yet again in August and that's really all that matters.

[Osmeric]

I would guess subs down marginally, maybe by 200K. The 1M figure is much too large, in my opinion.

[Deleted]

I love WoW...

But seriously this whole "subs will go down, zomg" chatter is slightly silly... Of course subs will go down, the game's 8+ years old and still competing(read: smashing into the ground) pretty much every other MMO out there.

Unfortunately subs will dwindle over time, especially until the next expansion - it's by no means a coffin nail.

[willowe]

My guess: 8.8 million. A loss, but nothing major.

Then again, I've seen ~10 friends join/rejoin in the last two months, so who knows. Maybe it's less of a loss.

[Deleted]

So it's this kind of thread again? I've never seen anything good coming from them. Most don't understand. Some don't want to. All can be just read up once it has been released.
Most of the things posted in these kind of threads is either amateurish opinions presented as facts from either side or just strawman and fallacies to protect their idea.
And in the end they always kind of get derailed by quite the aggressive and personal attacks of some white knights pushing for locks on this kind of topic if the results are not that rosy.

I'd poker for another "but most losses are from the East" or "stable subscriptions" with a brief comment during the call explaining East has peaked again, subsequently admitting further losses elsewhere. And we know where that elsewhere is.

That 9-12mln subs numbers still baffles me since years. I have no idea how all this adds up when all available concurency data shows WoW to be 2-3 times more popular from next in the pack title. While this is still a solid lead, it is nowhere near the "x10 times more" mantra that Blizzard seems to be advertising. It almost seems like half of all those subscribers are not playing the game at all.

The concurrency data you have seen mostly reflects just the situation on Western server.
The mentioned subscription are from all around the world no matter the payment model.
It makes sense for them not to match up.

[SherbertLand]

Before the hate boys come in: almost all the rest of the MMO bunch went FREE to play already years ago.

And no, 100 k or 400 k is not equal to 9 million either.

Difference is about 1 billion dollars revenue per year.

The fact is that MMO's in general took a back seat in recent years for various reasons.

That's because they failed to compete, not because they wanted to.

[ihyln]

Sweet speculation thread! Subs have dropped no question. I can only hope that this will be the call where they fire ghostcrawler.